Going Home
by The Crow With The Black Eyes
Summary: Basically a POV that reads like a soap porea.


Disclaimer: I am merely borrowing the characters in J.K.R.'s brilliant Harry Potter series for my own amusement, if I wanted to make money out of them I'd have tried much harder than this. :-) A hearty apology to J.K.R. for a silly joke at the end. (Don't peek yet, wait till you come to it.)  
  
A/N: This actually ends up reading a lot like a soap, sorry about that. Also please accept my apologies for my feeble attempts at humour. Since I seem to be aplogizing too much, I'll just say I hope you enjoy my first HP fic. (Come on, look relieved, I'm going!)  
  
Going Home  
  
Chapter 1  
  
"Dad, could you please-" began my daughter Sarah, staring at me hopefully, her potatoes cold and untouched on her plate. "Not now, Sarah. Whatever it is, it can wait till later," said her mother. "Mum," groaned Susan, Sarah's identical twin sister, "Couldn't we ask now? We might not remember later. Please, Mum…"  
  
"No. I promise I'll remind you later. Promise, all right?"  
  
"Mum, please let me ask Dad now!" Sarah turned imploring blue eyes – my eyes – on her mother.  
  
"Oh, come on, Lily, there's no harm in just one question, is there?" I said, highly amused.  
  
"NO, James Potter. Susan and Sarah won't stop once they start and you know it. Even so, you stick up for them. I'm surprised at you!" No matter how sharp her words, my dear wife could never hide her laughter, either in tone or eyes, beautiful green eyes that sparkled and shone when she wanted to laugh.  
  
"Oh, Mum, you're cracking up. You are!" Those twins, they never missed a trick, bless them.  
  
Sarah wolfed down her potatoes. "Mum, may I be excused now?" she gasped, still out of breath from her mouthful-a-microsecond speed.  
  
"Yes, Sarah. You too, Susan," added Lily, seeing that the other girl had also risen. "Thank you!" exclaimed Susan with all her seven-year-old gratitude. The two tore out of the dining room at top speed, their red-hued hair flying behind them. "What's the hurry?" I called after them. "We want to talk to Harry!"  
  
I stared after them. " Lily, this Harry business is getting to be more and more fantastic day by day. They actually think he lives there now. They even talk of hearing him answer them. This is ridiculous!"  
  
"Calm down, James. It's not ridiculous, it's true. I've heard him too. You should go into his room and listen. Then pass your opinion." Lily sniffed contemptuously and took the pile of magically laundered clothes up to the twins' room, sweeping out of the room so fast she almost started a cyclone.  
  
I shook my head. This whole Harry thing was crazy. I never should have left Harry's room as it was. I knew, even back then, that 'Harry's room' would cause more worry than it was worth. It wasn't as though my son had ever lived there. He had been dead before his second birthday.  
  
However, if even Lily, skeptical, never-believe-an-unproven-word Lily, actually believed this, there had to be something to it. I resolved that I would give it a shot that night.  
  
After dinner, I tucked the twins into bed, admonished them not to chatter, and came downstairs. Lily was waiting. "James, I'm very tired. I think I'll go to bed."  
  
I smiled secretly. This was just the opportunity I had been waiting for. "I need to do a little work on the potion." I was compounding a potion to try and cure my old friend Remus Lupin, who was a werewolf. True, I had not met him for fourteen years, but what can I say? I'm an optimist. I never give up hope. " I honestly wish I had Snape here to help me." That at least was true. We had always been at each other's throats, Snape and I, but that man could brew potions.  
  
"All right, then, James." Lily gave me a sweet, sweet smile. "I'll go up to bed."  
  
"Right." I felt a little guilty about deceiving her- not enough to make me too uncomfortable, but just big enough for me to know that it was there.  
  
I waited for the snap, the soft thud and the click that told me that Lily had entered the bedroom and closed the door. I crept up the stairs and made my way to the room overlooking the little wood grove, with the name Harry upon the door. I opened the door, came in and closed it behind me.  
  
"You didn't knock."  
  
I whirled around the room, trying to see the origin of that sulky, glum voice.  
  
"I need my privacy. I'm growing!"  
  
I felt weak all of a sudden. I sat down on a chair before my wobbling legs could give way.  
  
"So you've finally deigned to come and visit me, have you? It's about time!"  
  
"Harry?" I whispered.  
  
"Yes, Harry. I'm surprised you even remembered my name."  
  
I winced. His remarks were caustic and cutting to the extreme. It was obvious the boy had been spoiled rotten. Boy? He was nothing but a voice. Not a very pleasant one, at that.  
  
"Fine. If you don't want to talk to me, then you can leave. There's no sense in making all those funny noises."  
  
I had had enough. I rose and walked out of the room.  
  
"Close the door on your way out."  
  
Oh, I closed it, all right. I only hope it didn't wake up the whole house.  
  
I walked downstairs, disgusted. Was that my son? That spoiled, rude, sulky person? The once little, laughing one-year-old I had called my Small Brave Fellow?  
  
I went to the kitchen and helped myself to a Chocolate Frog. Chocolate would always minister to a mind deceased.  
  
I crammed my mouth with the poor Frog and did some serious introspecting.  
  
I sat thinking, reasoning and battling with myself way into the night. At the end of all that, I decided that the voice was not really Harry as such. Harry, after all, was dead. A perusal of the Spirit Encyclopedia revealed that this was a strange spectre called a Possibility. It had no existence even in the spirit world. In other words, this was only what Harry might have been.  
  
Even that was not much. A son who was so aloof, so rude and inconsiderate was not really something to be proud of. Then again, I would have given worlds solely to have that son, no matter if he was sulky, rude and all the rest of it. I did not even have that comfort. The comfort of knowing that boy, knowing what he looked like, what made him angry, what could move him to tears, what he hated, what he loved. I did not have that. And all because of someone who had hurt me indescribably, someone who had torn my world apart. Someone I had thought of as my friend.  
  
All because of Sirius Black.  
  
Sirius Black had, when we were hiding from Voldemort, been our friend. Sarah and Susan had not been born yet and Harry was just a year old. We had used the Fidelius Charm to hide from Voldemort and Sirius had been our Secret Keeper.  
  
Then suddenly he had begged us to change from him to another of my friends, Peter Pettigrew. What had prompted the change, I had never understood. Anyway, we changed to Wormtail and waited. In a week or so, Wormtail came to our house at night. He had with him two people, a husband and wife. He told us that he had been working undercover as a Death Eater and the two that he had with him were Death Eaters who had fallen out of Voldemort's favour. They were to be tortured and executed. Wormtail could not save them, but had decided that since they had been trying to help the Light Side, they deserved a more humane death. So, he had told Voldemort where we were. When Voldemort came and tried to kill us, he would be battling Polyjuice Potion replicas, not James, Lily and Harry Potter. I was indescribably touched when he told me he would be taking Harry's place and dying in his stead, but I couldn't allow it. The man and I had already switched places and so had Lily and the woman, when Voldemort came. I battled with Voldemort fiercely, but when he was just about to kill me, the man who now looked like James Potter jumped into my place and Voldemort directed the Killing Curse at him at the same moment that I Disapparated. Lily joined me in a far corner of the wood around our house, Godric's Hollow. Peter had said that he would Teleport Harry to us, but before that could happen, there was an earsplitting blast. We could not see the house, but we could tell that was where the explosion came from. It was so forceful that it threw us of our feet and knocked us unconscious. When we came to, Wormtail was standing before us, in tears. He told us that Harry had survived the curse and that Voldemort was gone, temporarily at least, but that Sirius Black's motorbike had come out of nowhere, taken Harry and had left again. He told us that he would be incommunicado for many years if necessary, and that it would probably help if Lily and I lay low for a while, at least till he could find out what happened to Harry. He said he'd contact us when it was safe.  
  
That was the last night I ever saw Harry or Peter. The next day, we heard that Black had killed Peter and that he was convicted for first-degree murder. Lily and I assumed he had been acquitted on lack of evidence. There was no report of the trial.  
  
I shook my head. Memories were not going to help. I had better go to sleep.  
  
  
  
(Not from James Potter's personal narrative)  
  
Harry Potter stared at the letter, reading and rereading it till he knew it by heart. What did this mean? A letter from Peter Pettigrew, of all people, telling him that his parents were alive and well, the true story of that fateful Halloween, and that his mum and dad were living in a place called Godric's Hollow near Ottery St. Catchpole. Harry knew he had to go there or he would never know peace again.  
  
In preparation, he packed and Teleported his trunk to somewhere near Godric's Hollow. Teleporting was something he had learned during the holidays; fifth and seventh years were allowed to do magic over the holidays, to practice and revise for their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s. He pushed a few things into a bag: his Invisibility Cloak, the album full of photos of his parents, Pettigrew's letter, the Marauders' Map and his wand. He looked at Hedwig, his owl and wondered if he should write to Ron. For some reason he decided not to. If his parents were indeed alive, he felt that it would be highly embarrassing, to say the least, if he met them in the presence of the Weasleys. If it was not true, as he feared, then he didn't think that he would be able to bear the disappointment and he did not want the Weasleys to see that, though they were like family to him.  
  
His decision made, he poked Hedwig awake and told her to go to his trunk and on no account to go to Ron's house, except if she was hungry. He then dropped his bag onto the floor of his bedroom and looked around it for what he knew was probably the last time. Then he closed his eyes and concentrated. A second later, a black panther with a wildcat's blazing green eyes was standing where Harry had been. The panther picked up the bag and the broomstick lying on the floor in its mouth and put its paws on the window sill of the room. A high jump, but nothing for a panther. The sinuous cat leaped gracefully and landed without a sound on the street below. It looked up at the half moon, perhaps to get its bearings, and then ran down Privet Drive and disappeared into the night.  
  
  
  
Chapter 2  
  
Screams, squeals and shrieks of laughter tumbled downstairs as Sarah and Susan ran down, evidently in the best of excellent spirits. I smiled and picked up one redhead in each arm and said, "Hallo, kiddos! What's the good news?" Sarah giggled and explained, "We were talking to Harry and by the way, he said you went and spoke to him last night, Daddy!" "Yeah"- chimed in Susan, "I thought you didn't believe in him, Daddy!"  
  
"Er, right, it's time for dinner, you two had better eat."  
  
The twins raced me to the dining room. As we sat down, Sarah having won, Lily said, "Are you going to play Quidditch tonight, James?"  
  
"Yes", I said with a smile, "I'll be playing Seeker tonight, and I hope to beat the other team."  
  
"You'll win hands down, Daddy."  
  
"Course you will!"  
  
Lily smiled. "I suppose you'll be going as Jim Brown, as usual?"  
  
"Yes, I will." Jim Brown was my alias in the wizarding world. We were the Browns to everyone we met, except the twins' friend Ginny, who had never met the rest of the family and knew the twins only by their first names.  
  
When dinner was over I went up, tucked the twins in and then went to talk to Harry. Admittedly it would not be pleasant. But somehow I felt I had to.  
  
I opened the door and went in.  
  
"Hi, Dad." He sounded sheepish and apologetic. "Hi, Harry." I said.  
  
"I'm sorry I was so rude yesterday. I'm not always like that."  
  
I was touched. "Don't worry about it ", I said soothingly.  
  
"You really forgive me?  
  
"Mm-hmm."  
  
"Thanks, Dad."  
  
"You're welcome." No reply.  
  
"I'll be going to play Quidditch tonight," I said.  
  
"Really? Good luck."  
  
"Thanks. Bye!"  
  
"Bye, Dad. I wish I could hug you. Pretend I did."  
  
I went downstairs, feeling a nice, cuddly kind of feeling.  
  
"Bye." I said to Lily. "I'll have to go."  
  
"Good luck, Jim," she said.  
  
I left for the field.  
  
"Oi, Jim, that you?" I acquiesced and we began organizing team tactics. We were short of a Beater. I was playing Seeker and I offered to scout for someone to play.  
  
As I cruised along, I spotted a man - on a broomstick - who seemed to be heading for the village. "Hey! Can you play Quidditch?" I called. He looked back at me. "Yes!" he called. "Then come on!" I said. "Let's go." He was wearing a cloak and hood, as all of the Quidditch players did. I was wearing one, too.  
  
I came back triumphantly, the player in tow. He had told me on the way that he played Beater. Perfect! The rest of the team, who were starting to get slightly paranoid, welcomed him. The game started. The new player seemed to take to the rest of the team remarkably well. He was really an excellent flyer. He rounded off the match with a superb swat at the other Seeker and we won the game. The teams, patting him cheerfully on the back, left and I offered the wayfarer a bed for the night, which he accepted gratefully. I was suspicious of this man- he sounded familiar…  
  
I lingered back to talk him. He seemed diffident.  
  
"Who are you?" I enquired.  
  
"No one of importance."  
  
"Tell me." I insisted.  
  
"No."  
  
"Why? Think I'll turn you in to the Ministry or something?"  
  
"You might say that…"  
  
"All right." I had had enough. "I give you my word that the Ministry will know nothing about you, Sirius Black. That is your name, isn't it?"  
  
He threw back his hood. "How-how did you know who I am?"  
  
"Do you know who I am?"  
  
Black went white. He really looked like a vampire, with his hollow cheeks and sunken eyes.  
  
I threw back my own hood. "Hello, Sirius Black."  
  
The fool, he was just staring at me. "P-Prongs? You're- you're- how-? How did you-? How? Why didn't you-? Where have you-? HOW?" He seemed to have lost his senses. If I didn't know better, I would have said he was almost glad to see me.  
  
"So, what happened at the trial after you killed my friend?" I said bitterly.  
  
His expression changed. "Oh, so that's what this is about, is it? I beg to differ, James. Peter is still alive and well, in the best of health, which is better than what I can say for your SON!"  
  
"S-s-son? What son? You killed my son thirteen years ago! I'm asking you about the TRIAL!" I felt myself losing control. Any minute now, I was going to hit him.  
  
His face closed up. "Trial?" he croaked. "What trial? I was not given a trial."  
  
"So you weren't even tried?" I asked, with withering scorn.  
  
"That's not how I would put it." He was talking like a dead man.  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Barty Crouch was the head of Magical Law Enforcement. He gave me no trial."  
  
"You mean you were-" I couldn't finish.  
  
"Sent straight to Azkaban, yes."  
  
"And Worm- Peter?"  
  
"He ran, the rat that he was, the coward. He must have realized how easy it would be to keep you out of the way…I suppose he came and saved your lives?"  
  
"You might say that." My voice was less than a whisper.  
  
Sirius was silent as I told him about that night. "T-then the bodies I saw- " he broke off and turned away. I squeezed his shoulder. It shook with long- suppressed emotion under my hand.  
  
We walked homeward, talking about the thirteen years that had caused so much pain, so much suffering. It turned out that Peter had done a lot of cruel things. Sirius had met him at the Shrieking Shack- our old haunt. A wave of nostalgia washed over me. "How's Moony?" I asked. "Suddenly I miss him a lot."  
  
Sirius grinned. "He's fine. I was supposed to meet him here, actually."  
  
"What about you? You look like a skeleton!"  
  
"Yes, well, Azkaban takes a lot out of you, you know." He sighed and turned away. "Padfoot?", I said. "Is there something"- he cut me off. "There's plenty wrong." he said with an intensity I usually only associated with him when he was talking to Snape. "First I spent twelve years in Azkaban, then I broke out to find that my best friend's only son thought I was a murderer- "  
  
"WHAT!"  
  
Sirius turned back to me with a grin like a Cheshire cat. "I didn't tell you? Heavens, what was I thinking? It should have been the first thing I said! Harry – your son, your Brave Fellow – he's alive, he's fine, he's at his aunt and uncle's in Surrey."  
  
I stared at him. I must have heard wrong. "You're joking, right?"  
  
"Nope!"  
  
I must have stood stunned for some time. I have a vague, blurred memory of Sirius standing there, cackling with delight and rubbing his hands. Then I sprang to life. "Come on! What are we waiting for? Let's go and get him!" He grinned even wider, if that was possible. "Steady on, Prongs. We can't just go. We'll have to talk to Dumbledore, find out if it's safe for him…"  
  
"Why wouldn't it be safe?" I asked, puzzled. Sirius stopped grinning now. "James," he said, gripping my shoulder, "there are a lot of things you need to know…important things. We're all-"  
  
"Come on then," I said. We had reached the garden of Godric's Hollow and I opened the kitchen door. The twins were long asleep and Lily was dozing by the fire, the flames dancing on her red hair. She stirred as we came in and woke up. "Sirius?" A look of absolute shock was upon her face, which I suppose was expected when she saw that I was arm-in-arm with the man that I had for years accused of killing my only son, and whom she had vainly defended.  
  
A warm smile replaced the shocked look on her face and she gave us an I- hope-you've-made-up-and-that-this-will-never-happen-again look that she reserved for the twins when they quarreled.  
  
"Sirius Black!"  
  
"Lily! It's wonderful to see you! I-I – this is wonderful!"  
  
Several delighted exclamations later, Lily had supplied us with hot drinks and we sat comfortably around the kitchen table. Sirius smiled at me before turning to Lily and saying "Lily, there's something you have to know…" He turned back to me expectantly. I looked at Lily and said softly "Harry's – he's – he's all right, he's alive, Lily." Lily stared at me. She whispered, "No, James, that can't be true. Harry can't be…" I nodded my head, smiling. "Yes, Lily. It's true. He's alive." Lily's lower lip trembled. She bit it and covered her face in her hands. I put an arm around her and she sobbed tears of joy against my shoulder. Sirius grinned, looking as though he'd won the Order of Merlin.  
  
"So, Padfoot," I said as I leaned back in my chair ten minutes later, "you said you had something important to tell us. What is it?"  
  
Sirius' smile disappeared as though it had been switched off. "Prongs, he's back." Who? The next word he said made my blood run cold. "Voldemort."  
  
The next three hours were spent listening to a long story that began with the moment of the blast that knocked Lily and me unconcious and terminating with two very cryptic letters, one from Dumbledore and one from Harry, telling Sirius and Remus Lupin to get over to Godric's Hollow immediately.  
  
Sirius added as much detail as he could, especially about Harry. Even so, there were interruptions every two minutes along the lines of "Yes, but what did Harry do?" and poor old Padfoot had to keep stopping to shrug and say he didn't know.  
  
And my word, it was a narrative that would knock your socks off. Quite apart from the storyline, the characters were riveting, the play of emotions astounding. They ought to write a book about it.  
  
At this moment, there was a disturbance. Two disturbances, actually, in the form of Sarah and Susan. Sirius was 'enraptured' to meet them, but the twins were highly agitated. "We can't hear Harry, Daddy! He's not there! Something's wrong." I pacified them by saying I'd see to it later. Of course after that I had to rebuke them for being up so late. Sirius, who had looked mystified, was soon filled in. He hazarded the opinion that the Possibility had fled when it found out its cover was blown. We must have been talking a very long time, because when we stopped, it was well past midnight. I went outside while everyone else fussed with 'midnight snacks'. And stopped in my tracks.  
  
Standing in my front garden was a large, sleek, beautiful black panther, holding a bag – and of all things, a broomstick - with eyes gleaming green out of the darkness and a large, gaping wound across its face (does a panther have a face?). As I watched, amazed, the panther began to transform, changing shape to become a boy of roughly fifteen years, with a large wound across his face corresponding to the one on the panther. I opened my mouth to ask who on earth he was, when he lurched forward alarmingly and fell over on the grass.  
  
Sirius had come out behind me and trotted up as I bent over the prone figure on the lawn. "What's up, Prongs?" he asked, kneeling next to the boy as I tried to turn him onto his back. I turned him over and looked up at Sirius to ask him what we should do now, when I saw that his face was the colour of chalk, his eyes wide and disbelieving. "Padfoot, what on earth is it?" He turned to me and grabbed my shoulders. "Prongs. Prongs! Look at his face!" I turned and looked into the blood-smeared face – and gasped. The boy lying on the grass looked very familiar. Yes… same face, same hair. I couldn't see the eyes, but he looked…so much like me! "Sirius – who is he?" Sirius was shaking my shoulders hard. "James Matthew Potter, THAT IS YOUR SON!!!" For a long time I stared at him. I was jolted back by Padfoot snarling in my ear to 'get up and help me, James!' We carried him into the house, not wanting to use magic in the garden lest whoever had attacked him guess that he had been found. When we carried him in and disclosed his identity to Lily and the twins, there was plenty of excitement. Sarah and Susan were all for waking Harry up – "It would be such wonderful news to tell him!" The three adults, however (ahem) told them it would not be advisable. We took him up to the room he had never used, put him in bed and left him there. The bag and broomstick he'd been carrying were left there, too.  
  
It was well on in the evening when the twins, who had been upstairs for some time, came downstairs in a great hurry. "Dad, Harry's woken up!" gasped Sarah, rosy-cheeked with excitement. "He woke up and asked where he was"- "Susan said Godric's Hollow, and I said Sirius was here, and we came down immediately"- "We didn't say a word about him being our brother"-. It was getting rather confused, but we understood enough to rush upstairs immediately. Harry was sitting up when we came, the wound across his face expertly healed by Lily. He looked up when we came in. He had a friendly, good-natured face, with the determination of my Brave Fellow in it. "Sirius," he began and then stopped. He was looking past Sirius to Lily and me, but there was no disbelief in his face, only happiness. "Dad, Mum?" he said. "Is that really you?"  
  
"Harry?"  
  
Green eyes – Lily's eyes – looked up at me with a very suspicious glimmer in them. I took one long step towards the bed and at long last pulled my only son into a hug. I could feel Lily's arms, too. Harry, his face buried in my shoulder, let out a muffled sob. I could hear Sirius sniffling behind me. Susan, who was obviously very confused, could also be heard asking rather plaintively why we were all crying.  
  
When we had composed ourselves a little, I pulled Susan and Sarah forward and introduced them to Harry. Sarah looked at him with her disarming smile very much in place. "Does your head still hurt?" Harry shook that portion of his anatomy. Sarah exclaimed "Oh, good," and she and Susan threw themselves at him.  
  
The person who had attacked Harry was one of Voldemort's Death Eaters, the mention of whom brought Sirius' warning back, but I personally didn't care anymore. We were family and we could stand up to everything.  
  
Harry turned out to be a brilliant Quidditch player, agile, fast and fearless. The twins became more adament than ever in their entreaties to me to teach them Quidditch, which Harry solved by offering to teach them himself.  
  
Remus Lupin turned up, too (one day late, by the way). We had another somewhat mushy reunion and the twins were introduced again – "This is Susan and this is Sarah, no, this is Susan and this is Sarah."  
  
One major misunderstanding that Harry cleared up was the twins' friend, Ginny Weasley. The twins insisted on introducing Harry to 'the nicest neighbour ever.'  
  
We were all lounging in the garden one lazy afternoon when loud screams of, "Harry Potter!" and "Ginny, what on earth?" disturbed our quiet, peaceful repose. It turned out that the youngest of Ginny's redheaded brothers (she has six of them) was Harry's best friend. He also confided to me later that he was also quite 'fond' of Ginny. (!)  
  
When Harry had to go back to school, the twins nearly howled the place down. I will say that he was a wonderful older brother. Lily and I were almost jealous of the twins – we'd never had a brother like him. They called him Sir Harry because "only knights can defeat dragons" – much to his embarrassment and despite his repeated protests that he hadn't really defeated it, just got past it. He muttered to me the night before he left, that it was the only time he was really sorry to go back to school.  
  
He has come back home for the Christmas vacation and is at the moment cuddled at the feet of his 'motherest' in front of the fire, with one arm each around Susan and Sarah after 'the best Christmas ever.' The Weasleys had come over and no one had felt like sleeping till past four – even the twins!  
  
He is everything I could have wished for in a son and more. I'm a very lucky fellow. I have a wonderful wife, a wonderful son, two wonderful daughters, great friends and plenty of chances to ride the Firebolt, which I would say is the best broomstick ever.  
  
By the way, after hearing Harry's adventures, I am more convinced than ever that a book ought to be written about them, so much so that I'm seriously thinking of doing it myself – but not under my own name, I'd rather use a nom de plume. How does J. K. Rowling sound?  
  
A/N: Again, sorry, Ms. Rowling, for that silly crack. Yes, I know James couldn't have written The Books, but I thought it ended this on a cheerful note. Please review, constructive critcism as well as sugary-sweet flattery are very welcome. Flamers, come do your worst. Come on, I dare you. 


End file.
